Fall running, running partner, and full blown marathon training

Turns out I wasn't very good at running in October...and it also turns out October was ridiculously busy at work.  That means I probably should have taken the time to run far more often than I did to keep myself (and my family) sane.  But I didn't.  I'm also excusing myself because my left knee wasn't feeling all that great after the Portland Half and I didn't want to injure it further.

November was much, much better!  I saw my neighbor out running a few times and finally on my way home from an afternoon run, I asked her if she would be interested in running with me a few mornings a week.  She was nervous, stated she's not a very fast runner, and doesn't run very far, and didn't want to hold me back.  I let her that I am not fast, am willing to walk when needed, and assured her that she would not slow me down. 

That was a Wednesday and we agreed to meet up that Friday for our first run together.  Lynn and I met up that first morning at 6am knowing very little about each other.  We now meet up every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for about 3 miles.  Lynn started out being able to do about 1/2 mile of running with 1/4 mile walking for about 30 minutes and just last week she was able to do 1.5 miles running, 1/4 mile walking, and finished off the morning with another 1.25 running!  Progress!  It is SO GREAT to have someone waiting for me 3 days a week to run.  I've also found when I run with Lynn I am much more consistent with my time even though I don't check my Garmin like crazy when we're running together.  I got new shoes which helped an immense amount with my knee and hamstring pain I had been feeling during most runs.

Finally, on to marathon training.  Jamie and I are signed up to run The Phoenix Marathon on 3/2/13 and I'm finally feeling like I'm training for it.  Turns out the first day I met up with Lynn lined up perfectly with one of Hal Higdon's programs for starting my training and I've been surprisingly good at keeping to the program, even with inclement weather.  I ran 9 miles on Thanksgiving (talk about earning my stuffing) and this weekend I completed 10 on the dread-mill due to the rain yesterday morning.   When I say I finally feel like I'm training it's mainly because I don't have many recovery days between long runs.  I'm used to half-marathon training which allows me to run 10 miles and take a few days off before running anything similar until the race.  Two weekends from now I'll run subsequent long runs each weekend of 12, 13.1, and 10 miles to finish up all of my long runs of 2012 and in between those long runs I still have to keep up my weekday mileage of 12 to 14 miles.   The interesting thing is that I won't run anything this month longer than I what I have already run during any 2012.  January will be different...very different...

All that being said, it looks like I'm on track to run my goal of 500 miles this year, perhaps as much as 35 miles over my goal!  Yippee!

Portland Half Marathon!

I signed up for this race last November with my friends Lisa, Mike, and Renee.  Yes, you read that correctly, we signed up for it 11 months ago.  Who does that?!  We do!  Lisa dropped from the race several months ago, leaving Mike, Renee, and I to run on our own.  Our training was....uh....rather inconsistent and for different reasons for all of us.  For Renee, shin splints.  For me, the nasty toenail issue in August.  For all of us, fires all around Idaho completely saturated the Boise air with smoke and gave us great excused not to get out and run made us not want to run outside.  I think I speak for all of us when I say we were all ill-prepared for this race that we decided on so long ago.  I wonder if we would have all rethought our decision to run if the price for the race hadn't been so expensive; dropping $120 on a race was way more than any of us thought we'd spend for a race. For me, it was worth every penny and not just because I got to go to Portand and drink amazing beer!

Beer on Saturday at Deschutes

First things first, the packet pickup was incredibly organized.  They had volunteers everywhere directing people where to go with absolutely zero hassles with getting bibs and shirts. Renee will likely disagree with this since she accidently ordered XXL shirts (she's far from XXL), but they have a strict rule on no exchanges for shirts and I think that was pretty clear on the registration page....so that was a minor hiccup and disappointment, but again, the expo was very well organized and it was HUGE!

Fast forward to Sunday morning and the race itself.   I'm hoping to be reiumbursed for part of my race fees through Team Beef, so I sported my BEEF shirt and made Mike take a photo of me in the parking garage before we went to find our corrals at the race start.

BEEF in Portland!

I've never been to a race with corrals, so I was nervous about getting there early enough to find the correct corral.  Yeah, not a problem.  The port-a-potty line was enormous, but I also had plenty of time to get in line and get things taken care of because we got to the race start early enough.  Perhaps the coolest thing about the event this year was that they had all 11,000-ish people sing the National Anthem to kick things off.  I really wish I had taken my phone with me to record it, but I left it in the car to avoid having too many things to manage.  There was a guy standing directly in front of me who was an incredible singer!  So cool!

And then we were off!

My first 5 miles felt great...really great, in fact.  So great that I probably should have worn my Garmin for the race to slow me down a bit.  I walked a bit during mile six, ate some Goo Chomps (not my favorite, but I did my last few long runs with them and they worked ok), and continued on.  I finally broke down at mile 9 and asked someone what time it was.  Answer: 1 hour 38 minutes (the race started at 7:00).  I just checked a pace calculator and that put my average pace less than 11:00/mile.  Oops.

Things got hard after that and I did quite a bit of walking.  I ate more Goo but it didn't seem to help me much. I found a lady at mile 11 who started in my same corral (C) and I ran next to her for the next mile.  I asked her the time somewhere between miles 11 and 12: 2 hours, 17 minutes.  She said she thought we could finish by 2h 30m if we powered through.  I let her know I needed someone to push me to the end, and that's exactly what she did.  We talked about our recent races.  This was her 3rd half marathon this year and she ran her best (2:18) earlier this year.  Me: best race in 2:21 earlier this year.  Her husband ran the full marathon and was hoping to finish in 4:00.

Mile 12 came and I made a comment about this was going to be the hardest mile ever, and I was right.

I struggled through the last 1.1 miles. 

I walked.

She grabbed my hand and told me we had to keep going.

She continued to look at her Garmin and guided me through the last bit: 1/2 mile to go!  1/4 mile to go!  The finish line is just around the corner!  (why did the corner to seem to be so effing far away?!)

We crossed the finish line together and gathered our medal.  I turned to her and thanked her for helping me get to the finish...and then she was gone.

Mike was waiting at the finish line and I found him right away - that guy finished in under 2 hours!  The spread of food was incredible.  Hello, frosted animal cookies?  chocolate milk?  orange juice? coconut water? bananas?  string cheese?  grapes? candy?  I only dove into a few of the choices, but the whole spread was super amazing.

Renee finished, we got our gear bags that we checked earlier, made sure we all had finisher shirts and our 3 medals (what?) and made our way back to the hotel to stretch, shower, and find some lunch.  

Mike and Renee napped but I suddenly found myself with more energy and decided to walk around near our hotel for a bit and found myself wandering around the Alphabet District.  I ended up logging at least 16 miles on Sunday with the walking I did after lunch.   After all of that, I believe I earned every ounce of beer I drank that evening at The Green Dragon (a-maz-ing). 

I was able to check my finish time and 5k/10k splits when we got back to the hotel: 2:35:34...my 3rd worst time.  I figured out a part of my problem: I started out too fast.  My 5k page was a 10:31 average. My 10k pace was 11:19 average.  The big hill of the event is covered within that stretch of 6.2 miles.  I easily could have walked more in the first 4 or 5 miles and saved myself a bit more for th end but the spectators were in full force over that part and all I could think about was how I couldn't dare walk when so many people were there watching!  In the end, my lack of preparation combined with starting out too fast hurt my time and my pride.  It will get better again...sooner than later, I hope.

Overall, the trip to Portland was a great one for me.  I got to eat great food, drink incredible beer, and saw quite a bit of the city.  Plus, I got to see my distant cousin, Katie, for a few hours at The Thirsty Lion on Saturday, at dessert at Papa Haydn, and got myself a Portland Cream at VooDoo Doughnut this morning. Hooray!

9th Half Marathon

I'm headed to Portland this weekend to run my 9th half marathon!  My training has sucked this time around and I'll be honest with you, I haven't run since my 10.5 miler over a week ago.  My Team Beef shirt is packed, as is my Garmin but I'm seriously thinking about not wearing it (the Garmin) again.  I feel like it holds me back sometimes from going the pace that feels right when I constantly look at my pace. I'll do my best to update as soon as I can!  For now, I need to clean up my Portlandia playlist for the race and see about getting myself some lunch, and potentially create a new playlist for the drive! 

Side note: Good luck at the Chicago Marathon, Jamie!  You're totally going to kick ass!

Oh wow, I suck.

Really?  I haven't blogged since May?  Oy, so sorry!  I guess life got in the way of writing and for that I apologize to you and to myself.  I'll try to recap the Sawtooth Relay (snowy, cold) and See Jane Run Half (better than last year) at a later date, but if I don't it's because I can't remember a whole lot more than what I just wrote in parenthesis.

Remember last November when I signed up for the Portland Half Marathon?  Yeah, well that's coming up in just about 2 weeks.  I got a training plan all lined up and started to get myself in gear to ramp up in mileage when I stubbed my toe on a boat dock and ripped my toenail off the nail bed. 

Ouch.  And do I ever mean OUCH. 

I stumbled around in my Chacos and a pair of decent at work and couldn't get a closed-toe shoe on my foot without breaking out in tears for two weeks. TWO WEEKS!  That means, no working out happened and certainly no running during that time frame.  To top it all off, the air quality here in Boise has been absolutely terrible due to forest fires nearby which makes running seems much less desirable.  Amazingly enough, I've managed to keep going on my long runs and last weekend pulled off 8.5 miles.  I planned to run 10.5 this weekend and 11.5 next weekend before the Portland Half the weekend after (I know, cutting it close) but I've changed that plan.  I did get 10.5 done today (Monday) before work but am noting now (for everyone all three of you to see) that I will never run that distance before work again unless I have been regularly running 10+ mile runs on a regular basis (like every weekend).  I was completely exhausted and felt absolutely worthless.  That being said, I might try to do another 10 miler next weekend but also might cut it down to 8. 

I might not have put in as many miles as I would like by now and I'm certainly nowhere near as fast as I was earlier this spring but when it comes to the event, my body will know what to do and I have to trust that.

Famous Potato Half Marathon Recap!

Let me start out by saying this race was amazing.  Full of smiles and grunts and tears and more smiles and more tears.  All around amazing.  Seriously.

I picked up my bib on Friday afternoon and met the husband for drinks with his co-workers downtown afterward.  I had a few beers and then convinced him to go to dinner closer to our house where we continued to drink even more PBR.  At some point in time I realized it was a bad idea to be drinking so much the night before my next half marathon and pounded some water while we listened a fairly decent cover band at Willy B's.  I finished the night with a Zonker Stout before finally heading home to download a few new songs to my iPod and call it a night.

The morning had an early start; although I set 2 alarms to be sure I didn't oversleep, I woke up 30 minutes before either of them went off.  I got my gear together and had plenty of time to lube up with Body Glide and have a cup of coffee.  I had plans to meet my dear friend, Renee, at her house to hitch a ride to the start from her with Mike and Mitch at 7:30 that morning.  We left her place in plenty of time to get to the start line at Lucky Peak but got detoured due to unknown road construction.  We rolled up to the start line around with just enough time for Mike and Mitch to get their bibs and only a few minutes to spare.

Pre-race: No time for jitters!

Unfortunately, there was not enough time for me to get through the port-a-potty lines prior to the start and I started the race having to use the facilities.  Though not ideal, I decided to run to the first aid station and use a port-a-potty there.  The problem: the first aid station only had 2 port-a-potties and there was a line of about 3 or 4 people waiting to use them and there was no way I was going to wait that long.  I pushed through the folks standing around at the aid station (there may have been a lot of loud sighs from me about them standing on the course) and hoped there would be another port-a-potty nearby.  There wasn't.  In fact, there really weren't many at all throughout the race.  Race officials must have been relying on people being willing to use the public facilities off course throughout the race.  No thanks.

Remember how I posted about not being sure if I wanted to run with my Garmin or not?  Well, I got an e-mail from Adam (aka The Boring Runner) basically telling me it would be a bad idea to run without it (I believe he said, "race like you train!") so I listened.

There I am, in the background!

I maintained between a 10:20 and 10:30 pace through the first 6 miles or so, which I thought was too fast but I felt good so I kept on moving.  The problem: I still had to go to the bathroom and despite my constant looking for a good place to squat, there just wasn't anywhere to go. 

Not much happened until about mile 9 when I came up on a gal who seemed to be keeping a very similar pace.  I made a comment about how I didn't expect it to be so hot.  She agreed.  We chatted about races and this being her first half and this being my seventh and our time goals for the race (me: anything faster than 2:25; her: anything between 2:15 and 2:30).  We ran together for about 1/2 mile before she started to walk again.  I wished her luck and continued on.

Somewhere between miles 10 and 11 things started to get real for me.  Just before the aid station in that area I saw a parent of a kid on my caseload waiting to cheer on his wife (I knew she was also running the half).  He saw me and said something like, "Miranda! Only 2 miles left and still smiling!"  It was pretty great to see a familiar face on the course as a trudged along.
**UPDATE 5/22/12 - I saw this client's parent today and it wasn't him.  Now I have no idea who yelled this out to me...perhaps I was just delirious and imagining things, which his highly possible...

I continued on the Greenbelt and a group of men passed me going the opposite direction.  I heard my name again and for the life of me couldn't figure out who would have been running the opposite direction since most of the guys I know were running the same race as me.  I figured out later it was my buddy, Lance, who is training for the Ironman 70.3 - what a badass!

Right around that same time I took a look at my watch and realized I was at mile 11 in 1:59.  I almost started crying on the spot because I realized I had a really good chance at finishing with a huge PR.  

The turn off for the half-marathoners at mile 12 was one of the best parts of the race.  A teenage gal as there telling the marathoners to go straight and yelled out, "half marathoners, turn here and get your butt running over that bridge to the finish line!!!"

So I did.

As I neared the finish line, I saw Renee and Mike's girls waiting at the finish line (sorry, Mike and Mitch, I didn't see you there).  I rounded the corner and ran the last 10th of a mile at an average pace of 8:11; I was obviously ready to be done.

I finally crossed the finish line, stopped my Garmin and looked down to see 2:21.  And I wanted to cry again.  I meandered through the chute, got my medal, and contemplated hugging a stranger because I was SO. DAMN. HAPPY!  Instead, I waited until Renee, Mitch, Mike, and his girls approached.  Mike was the closest and as he asked how it went, I nearly attacked the poor guy (since he was closest) with a fully body hug and informed them all that I PR'd by 6 minutes.

Six. Glorious. Effing. Minutes.  

I cried and laughed and cried again.  I think the picture proves it.

Mitch, Miranda, Mike - tears of happiness!

In the end, my Garmin read 2:21:13 and I'm still on cloud 9 from my huge PR!

200 miles!

It's finally starting to warm up here in Boise which means I need to start getting up to run in the morning to avoid running in 90+ degree heat at lunch or after work.  I decided to get a move on that yesterday morning and set my alarm clock to be sure I had enough time to run, shower, and get to work by 9:00 am. I planned to run 3 miles and as I took my first few steps out the door remembered I only needed 3.47 to get to 200 miles for the year.  I didn't think twice about it - there was no question I'd hit that mark that morning.

So I did.  And it was awesome! 

I tend to forget how great I feel for the rest of the day when I get in a morning run.  I feel productive and ready to take on the world.  I definitely see the benefits of working out at lunch too, but morning workouts are so much better for my mental health, even if I do have to be out of bed earlier than I'd prefer.

On another note, I'll run my 7th half-marathon on Saturday and will, of course, be sporting my red Team BEEF shirt for the race.  I was hoping my new running skirt would be here by this weekend so I could be stylin' in some Athleta gear but it looks like it won't be here until Monday.  Booo. 

Anyway, I ran 10 miles last weekend at an average pace of 10:49/mile and this run has a slight downhill for the duration of the 13.1 miles so I'm hoping I can maintain a similar average and obtain a huge PR.  There's one problem: my body does not like to run at 10:45 pace.  It just doesn't.  Something tends to be off with my gait and I just can't keep myself there.  I'll tell you what my body does like to run: 9:40 to 9:50.  No kidding.  It just doesn't like to run 9:40 - to 9:50 for a long period of time!  That being said, after reading this Runner's World article and after Mike's PR at the High Speed Pursuit when he ran without his Garmin, I'm contemplating running without mine on Saturday (gasp!).  We'll see what happens with that plan.

I'm excited for this race and can't wait to see what happens on Saturday!

2 miles? Seriously?

Didn't I just run two half-marathons in April?  It's not like I've completely slacked off in the mean time.  I've been going to Crossfit and last night I took the kid on a 6.5 mile bike ride and I've been running but tonight, 2 miles was hard.  I realize I should recognize how far I've come and how great my next run will be, but for now I'm just irritated that I nearly had to walk before my first mile was finished. 

On the upside, I'm up to 176 miles so far this year which puts me right on track for getting to my goal of 500 for the year.  Yippee!